PC Alpha 20 Dev Diary

[Roland]

That is strictly a personel choice.

Yeah, who I hire to play the strength build for me is nobody else's business!

 

[Gamida]

Yeah, who I hire to play the strength build for me is nobody else's business!

Speaking of...you still owe me for 2 games

 

[Roland]

I would be willing to agree that a tier 3 ranged weapon for intelligence could be added if it also took up at least one of the robotic control slots while equipped so that you were not able to use that tier 3 fully perked ranged weapon in conjunction with your robots. Either that or create some mods that really enhanced the junk turret while used as a handheld weapon-- but then also make it so that a handheld turret also burned one of your robotic slots.

 

[Blake_]

I would be willing to agree that a tier 3 ranged weapon for intelligence could be added if it also took up at least one of the robotic control slots while equipped so that you were not able to use that tier 3 fully perked ranged weapon in conjunction with your robots. Either that or create some mods that really enhanced the junk turret while used as a handheld weapon-- but then also make it so that a handheld turret also burned one of your robotic slots.

I suggest an electric toothbrush that shoots toothbrushes. It does the exact same thing as a baton combat-wise so it wouldn't unbalance the game and it would also take that robotic "slot". It can have a primitive version (scrap iron toothbrush).

 

[Roland]

I suggest an electric toothbrush that shoots toothbrushes. It does the exact same thing as a baton combat-wise so it wouldn't unbalance the game and it would also take that robotic "slot". It can have a primitive version (scrap iron toothbrush).

No deal. Because, then they would need to introduce a flosser as well, since for realism, you should always do both. Then for added realism players could just leave the flosser lying around until just a few days before the 6-month horde night and then use it vigorously just to get through that...er....appointment...

 

[dcsobral]

As someone who primiarily uses INT build, INT is both amazing and absolutely terrible IMO. Junk Sledge + Trader price perk + Quest reward perk are 3 of the best S tier perks in the game, everything else is pretty much bad

Stun baton is pretty mediocre but I've used it for my last couple of builds for fun, but it's just objectively worse than the club most of the time, and in multiplayer it gets your friends killed because you ragdoll zombies to them that aren't dead, and people walk past and then get clobbered when the zombie stands back up. It's better than the Machete and about as good as the spear though, so not worst in game

Junk Sledge is amazing and one of the best weapons in the entire game when used right, and 70% of the reason to even go into the int tree at all

Junk Turret is honestly pretty bad now because it uses an absolutely absurd amount of iron. It took me well over ten thousand iron to clear a Shotgun Messiah using dual junk turrets compared to me clearing it with about 80-90 shotgun shells with my autoshotgun, and then the loot along the way and at the end replaced those shotgun shells anyway.  Using dual junk turrets even just for big hordes will easily eat right through hundreds of iron, compared to just throwing your two junk sledges down in a door way or using a shotgun + club.

Junk Turret Shotgun Ammo is also pretty awful because the turret will rapid fire out your entire stockpile in 0.234 seconds to do what you could have done with a single shotgun shell with an unperked double barrel

Int doesn't even have a tier 3 weapon, and anyone can pick up and use the drone and no dev has commented AFAIK if the robotic perk line even changes the drone in any way at all. A single autoshottie with no perks absolutely smokes the fully perked dual junk turrets in terms of cost and overall efficiency

The rest of the perks are pretty bad besides the trader one and quest reward one. You can find schematics / buy the entire item from traders  for all the craftables or just make your benches and then buy a respect potion and put the points somewhere else, and none of the crafting bonuses from the perks are worth it.

Junk Sledge is so good that it keeps the int tree relevant weapon wise, and any good horde base relies 90% on the existence of dual junk sledges, but outside of the sledge, the rest of the int weapons are pretty power crept compared to the other trees.

I still say that the Int line should have gotten a "Blowpipe"  tier 0 int weapon that uses junk ammo. In the rework they wanted to give everyone a weapon for each type that uses the correct ammo right from the start, but Int got kinda left high and dry, and only got a tier 0 melee weapon and no tier 3 one for the stun baton line

"Just use a shotgun and a club lol" isn't really a good reason why the int tree can't just be balanced like every other tree

This is a decent analysis, though it treats players being dumb as being a stun baton problem -- just remove the repulsor mod in that case, though. The stun baton with nerd tats is one of two AoE melee weapons, the other one being a sledgehammer when perked up (I think level 3 and above?). Combine with the repulsor mod it makes a great weapon to clear zombies from a place during horde night.

The stun baton is faster than people expect so I see a lot of people using it like a club -- with the RoF of a club -- and effectively capping their DPS. That said, here are some weapons that have a higher DPS than the stun baton: the wrench, the claw hammel, the wood club, the candy cane knife and club, the iron fireaxe, the steel shovel.  And, of course, all other T2 and T3 melee weapons except the iron spear.

And a20 will introduce the pipe baton... I hope we get to see it during the dev streams, but here's the irony about it: did anyone ever thought that what the Intellect tree was missing was a worse stun baton?

A problem with both the robotic turret and the robotic sledge is that they activate demolishers. There are things you can do with the robotic sledge to make it less likely but the robotic sledge seems almost drawn to that green light. You can have it shooting zombies in the back, but sometimes zombies decide they want to go the other way and, then... boom. I never use robotic turrets on my horde base because of that: early game the ammo is too expensive and the turret is not needed, late game it will activate demolishers. And, on top of that, you cannot use sledge and turret at the same time. I use robotic sledges to kill screamers while I mine, and that's all. And that makes all those magazines benefiting robotic turrets useless. It is fun as a novelty but if you stop and think about its effectiveness instead of just using them because they exist, you'll end up not using them.

 

[Roland]

And a20 will introduce the pipe baton... I hope we get to see it during the dev streams, but here the irony about it: did anyone ever thought that what the Intellect tree was missing was a worse stun baton?

The pipe baton is better than the wooden club. Unless I perk into clubs, I craft a pipe baton as soon as I get my hands on some short pipes.

 

[hiemfire]

The stun baton with nerd tats is one of two AoE melee weapons, the other one being a sledgehammer when perked up (I think level 3 and above?). Combine with the repulsor mod it makes a great weapon to clear zombies from a place during horde night.

One of these just requires investing perk points while leveling, the other requires rolling 652 twice on a pair of d1000 at GSy or higher, 652 twice on a pair of d2500 at GSx or lower...

 

[dcsobral]

Int perk line has several issues. The critics raise valid points pointing out inconsistencies where it doesn't make sense / doesn't match the other trees, the defenders just go "Yeah but you can just use a shotgun lol" and "yeah but that makes it different from the other perk lines, which is better for some reason!" basically as their only defense.

Int isn't awful or anything, but it does need a bit of tender love and care imo because it's just not consistent with the design logic of the other trees. 

The TLDR; of issues for me at least is

* No tier 0 or even tier 1 ranged int weapon like every other tree has, so you have no use for junk ammo until way into the game, since the tier 1 int weapon can't use it either, so you don't even have your only ranged weapon until the steel age

* No tier 3 weapon at all for the baton or robotic line. When your friends are running around clearing entire bloodmoon hordes with M60s and Autoshotguns you are . . . . also using those and competing with them for ammo

* Expensive perk line. You can't invest into the robotic perk line until 5 int I believe, so even if you did have a robotic sledge in the first day somehow you wouldn't even be able to build around it until you had invested a lot of points into int

Int basically doesn't have an early game weapon or late game weapon, it's only got mid game stuff. Late game I don't even really bother with robotic turrets and just use sledges, because the turrets will drain tens of thousands of iron to do the same thing that an unperked molotov and unperked autoshotgun can do, and early game you quite literally don't even *have* an option. Unless you plan to play the entire first week using a pipe baton and nothing else, int users just have to shrug and invest in a different tree and use a club and shotgun like everyone else

This argument is a good example of the Great Intellect Divide. Here are the two sides of this divide:

• Jawoodle perks up early in weapons, and has level 5 in his weapons of choice as his ultimate goal. He hates Intellect.
  
• I never perk up in weapons until I'm pretty much done with every other skill I might possible want. I love Intellect.
  

As much as it might be an anathema to many, it is perfectly possible to play 7 Days to Die without perking up on weapon skills. If you do so then your skill trees and your weapons have no connection whatsoever and, therefore, it is irrelevant what the Intellect "weapons" are. On the other hand, getting BB3 or 4 quickly and buying an auto shotgun for a thousand dukes enhances your fighting capability far better than what any other attribute can accomplish. You might not have cardio, but you have a motorcycle by day 7. You might not be good at looting, but you are good at buying stuff from the trader. You suck at using a pickaxe or fireaxe, but you don't need to because you bough a chainsaw and an auger. You don't need fast clear every POI desperately searching for crucial loot items because you can craft them. And you don't need to be super efficient at killing zombies during horde night because your base will help you out.

So Intellect is a very good tree for people who don't want to spec into weapons, and bad tree for those who do.

 

[Blake_]

The pipe baton is better than the wooden club. Unless I perk into clubs, I craft a stun baton as soon as I get my hands on some short pipes.

That's good to hear. In any case, the baton would benefit from another superspecial mod (like the repulsor), like a chain eletrocution one or a superslow beam supercharger with tiny ranged capabilities. Pew pew.

 

[Roland]

That's good to hear. In any case, the baton would benefit from another superspecial mod (like the repulsor), like a chain eletrocution one or a superslow beam supercharger with tiny ranged capabilities. Pew pew.

Well....not so fast. I failed to take swing speed into consideration as was pointed out to me by one of the testers. The baton does greater damage than the club but is slower. So overall the one that is best depends on how you play. I realized that I tend to swing weapons at the same pace rather than take advantage of the speed differentials between melee weapons. I don't know why...huh....

 

[Guppycur]

Seems to me demolishers are backwards.  They should go boom *until* you deactivate them, not the other way around...

 

[pregnable]

TL;DR version of the intelligence balance discussion is that basically that no matter what settings you play on, you should always spec into strength first. 

 

[meganoth]

This is a decent analysis, though it treats players being dumb as being a stun baton problem -- just remove the repulsor mod in that case, though. The stun baton with nerd tats is one of two AoE melee weapons, the other one being a sledgehammer when perked up (I think level 3 and above?). Combine with the repulsor mod it makes a great weapon to clear zombies from a place during horde night.

The stun baton is faster than people expect so I see a lot of people using it like a club -- with the RoF of a club -- and effectively capping their DPS. That said, here are some weapons that have a higher DPS than the stun baton: the wrench, the claw hammel, the wood club, the candy cane knife and club, the iron fireaxe, the steel shovel.  And, of course, all other T2 and T3 melee weapons except the iron spear.

And a20 will introduce the pipe baton... I hope we get to see it during the dev streams, but here's the irony about it: did anyone ever thought that what the Intellect tree was missing was a worse stun baton?

A problem with both the robotic turret and the robotic sledge is that they activate demolishers. There are things you can do with the robotic sledge to make it less likely but the robotic sledge seems almost drawn to that green light. You can have it shooting zombies in the back, but sometimes zombies decide they want to go the other way and, then... boom. I never use robotic turrets on my horde base because of that: early game the ammo is too expensive and the turret is not needed, late game it will activate demolishers. And, on top of that, you cannot use sledge and turret at the same time. I use robotic sledges to kill screamers while I mine, and that's all. And that makes all those magazines benefiting robotic turrets useless. It is fun as a novelty but if you stop and think about its effectiveness instead of just using them because they exist, you'll end up not using them.

Demos are a big problem for the turret but not for the sledge. The sledge is best used high above the ground on a ledge where it pushes zombies down far below (even better into a deep pit). The demo gets pushed and will damage the pit, but nothing that is really important. Well, at least thats how I use it

 

[Blake_]

@faatal I have a question:

Knowing that armours are on the way, have you heard about legendary weapons from anyone or do you know if they are actually planned for the future? The concern is actually threefold:

1-Will they simultaneously make it along with armours for a21? 

2-Will they eventually make it in a future alpha or .....

3- ...... have they been scrapped?  

It would be very nice if we can get a "likely" even if it's remote. Thank you beforearm.

 

[Roland]

TL;DR version of the intelligence balance discussion is that basically that no matter what settings you play on, you should always spec into strength first. 

If you are looking for a straightforward simple game of attack the zombies by direct damage then yes. The strength build is like classic and basic gameplay. The tools for mining and harvesting, the recipes for food, and the basic club that the tutorial starts you with are all in that build so it is very easy and obvious-- a great build for your first playthrough as a noob or for someone who just likes things straightforward no matter how many times they play.

Choosing a different build and ignoring strength for the most part brings new challenges and a different way of playing if you so choose.

 

[Matt115]

I distinctly remember that the developers said something about the gun arsenal being done, A20 will just fill in some holes. If you want to be a game designer, get in line, all forum users here are hobby game designers but don't want to work for it. But the only real way to be a game designer is to mod and actually do the work. So, as a free hint: Propose smaller changes with watertight arguments and you might actually see one of your concepts come to reality. Like the newsstand

Well about INT :  well now i'm talking in  "what if...." style. I usually i don't speak how it could work from gameplay point of view. I'm focused more into aestetic ( like newsstand and skeletons) and lore that in balance/gameplay systems. Well about change of perks category now we can speaks more in mods/what if  style that  realistic suggestion now what can be changed

 

[Guppycur]

Seems to me int shouldn't be it's own strategy build type, but rather should be used soley for making item mods.  

Everyone wins.  Keep the weird electronics that are essentially mods anyway like the drone under int, move things like turrets to gun with a minor in int. 

Stun baton?  It's basically a club with a mod. 

 

[meganoth]

Seems to me int shouldn't be it's own strategy build type, but rather should be used soley for making item mods.  

Everyone wins. 

Except players who actually want to play INT

Keep the weird electronics that are essentially mods anyway like the drone under int, move things like turrets to gun with a minor in int. 

Stun baton?  It's basically a club with a mod. 

 

[Guppycur]

Except players who actually want to play INT

...they're the Linux users of the player base.

important?  Sure.  But there's only six of them.

/Runs away